Posted on: Thursday, April 11, 2002

Man found chiseling into Maui bank vault

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

LAHAINA, Maui — A Maui judge yesterday found probable cause to charge a man whom police said they caught trying to chisel his way into a Lahaina bank vault.

Franklin W. Gonzalez, 32, is charged with second-degree burglary, first-degree attempted theft, fourth-degree criminal property damage and possession of burglar's tools. He is confined at the Maui Community Correctional Center in lieu of $20,000 bail.

Gonzalez, a native of Belize who is in the country illegally, was arrested around 11 p.m. Friday at the Bank of Hawaii branch on Papalaua Street after bank security officials in Honolulu notified Maui police that an alarm in the vault had been activated. Officers heard a pounding noise inside the bank and found Gonzalez in an upstairs utility room over the vault, said Lt. Lenie Lawrence.

Gonzalez was wearing a black nylon stocking over his head and had tied a white rag over his mouth and nose, he said. Police also recovered a sledgehammer, a chisel and a walkie-talkie.

Lawrence said the suspect had managed to chip about 2 inches into the concrete floor, but it's highly unlikely he would have had any success in breaking through the armored vault.

Deputy Prosecutor Jerrie Sheppard said Gonzalez told authorities he was operating under instructions from a man named "Jose," and detectives are investigating whether anyone else was involved in the crime. There was no obvious sign of a break-in, and it's still not known how the suspect entered the bank, she said.

At a preliminary hearing yesterday in Lahaina District Court, Judge Reinette Cooper set Gonzalez's arraignment in Circuit Court for April 23.

Gonzalez was the subject of a missing persons case in January after a roommate reported to police that he had not been seen since Dec. 27. Police believed that the man was still on Maui but had not been able to locate him until his arrest.